How to successfully deal with bullies?

‘Bullies’ is a term that most associate with high school days. But have the bullies really stayed in high school or have they crept in your workplace. High school bullying and workplace bullying are completely two different concepts. Though, both are horrible, bullies at workplace can jeopardize your career is a server manner.

Before venturing into methods on how to successfully deal with bullies, one must understand the term. Bullying basically is, an act committed by a person with the sole intention to intimidate another person by belittling them either in private or in front of an audience. This leaves the victim with damaged self-esteem and confidence. It is an aggressive act, which can be executed in a sublet manner. Moreover, this is an isolated incident, bullying is something that is common occurrence that most people do not know how to handle.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are the victim then you have to take action. This is where you work; it is something that can be not ignored as you will be sending majority of your time in your workplace. You have done nothing wrong and hence, have no reason to continue to be a victim.

In order to overcome a bully, you need to first understand them fully. There are some typical behavior traits of bullies that will help you recognize them and act accordingly.

A bully’s behaviors:

They tend to label their victims

There is a lot of name calling from the bullies side

They use a lot of abusive and offensive language

Grapping every opportunity to belittle you

In critical cases there is verbal or physical abuse

Once you are aware about their traits, you need to take the necessary steps to stop the bullying. Given below are some of the important things to remember while dealing with bullies.

Don’t blame yourself: This is normally the first step for the victims. All victims jump to the conclusion that something might truly be wrong with them. But remember you shouldn’t have to be scared in a place you work. There is absolutely no way that you would cause the bullies to threaten and intimidate you. One of the major reasons bullies feel the need to threaten is because they themselves are insecure about their abilities and hence, stoup down to bully.

Assessing situation: Trust your instincts at all times. Also try and understand the situation, is everybody in the office intimidated by the bully or is he/she singling you out. If there are others like you in the office then you can get together and retaliate.

You are not alone: You would be surprised to know that are hundred and thousands of cases of bully in workplace all over the world. In fact, almost 45% of Americans have an encountered bullies in their workplace. Also around 72% of bullies are bosses, but more than 62% people instead of taking action, ignore the problem. But what people don’t realize they are not alone in this. You can reach out and there will many to help you.

Record the action: This is extremely important as you might need it in the future when need to recount the incident to the responsible authority. Be specific about the day, date and place where the bulling took place. Even the smallest information can be useful.